Reviews - 24/Aug/2014

Title	Score (/10)	Date	Platform	Comments
Bully Scholarship Edition	7	12/05/14	Xbox 360	I'm playing this game 8 years too late, time has hurt the game a lot.
3:10 To Yuma	9	12/05/14	DVD	I wish 3 Westerns came out like this movie every year. Christian Bale and Russell Crowe are great. Man, do I love cowboy movies.
Bad Neighbours	6	14/05/14	Cinema	Seth Rogen takes drugs in this movie, shocker. Not to sound too snarky, this movie has some funny moments.
Bulletstorm	8	21/05/14	Xbox 360	1st person Gears of War, everything was over-the-top and dumb, it was a lot of fun.
Sopranos Season 1	10	21/05/14	DVD	As good as a first season of a television show can be.
Fez	9	26/05/14	Xbox 360	Fantastic and beautiful game with an amazing world and art style. I enjoyed the clever mechanics and the platforming a lot. Exploration is the big winner here though, I loved exploring the world and searching for cubes, seeing what was next and trying to figure out the complicated puzzles. I had to use the internet for most of the difficult ones, Phil Fish, the creator, is a crazy genius. The only thing holding it back from a perfect score is technical issues, the game froze on me a few times and now it locks up as soon as I leave my house in the starting village, it seemed like a fitting end, but I did want to walk around the world one last time.
Moonrise Kingdom	7	26/05/14	DVD	Wes Anderson's style has pretty much reached it's limit with me now, it's now becoming worn out. It still has a lot of charm, but I can see right through it now. There are parodies of his style on YouTube and they get it so perfect that it goes to show how distinct his style is and how there is no diversity. This doesn't mean that this was a bad movie, it just means I won't be able to watch another Wes Anderson movie for a while. This movie has entertaining characters, an interesting location, some of my favourite actors and some funny jokes. Overall it's a good movie.
Xmen: Days of Future Past	6	7/06/14	Cinema	Scenes with Quicksilver was a real standout. I like the way they used the old and the new cast. Fight scenes with the mutants combining their powers in interesting ways were good. The future Sentinels were good enemies, very intimidating and scary. Timeline stuff was confusing, ultimately left me a little confused, no real standout scenes for me other than the Quicksilver scene. Reliance on CGI a little disappointing. Good humour in parts.

More reviews

Title	Score (/10)	Date	Platform	Comments
Call of Duty: Black Ops	9	8/04/14	Xbox 360	Interesting story, memorable campaign moments, great shooting mechanics, great sound, cool settings great character designs. I like the music choice and the game doesn't overstay it's welcome. Playing as Reznov was the real turning point for the game for me.
The Lego Movie	10	8/04/14	Cinema	Great visual style, looks like Lego, very colourful. Loved the characters, loved batman and his song :) loved the Star Wars cameo, I wish it was the real Harrison Ford, when I thought it was I thought it was such a magical moment, unfortunately it wasn't, but the other two guys were real and it was awesome. Great touching moment at the end. Very funny. Finding out about Jonah Hill and Channing Tatum's characters made it funnier.
Captain America: The Winter Soldier	8	19/04/14	Cinema	Good jokes, nice action scenes and likeable characters. Great popcorn movie.
The Grand Budapest Hotel	8	12/05/14	Cinema
Fantastic Mr. Fox	7	12/05/14	DVD
Indie Game The Movie	7	12/05/14	DVD
Splinter Cell: Blacklist	9	12/05/14	Xbox 360	Really wanted to give this game a 10, the only thing holding me back was technical issues. The game hard locked my console more than 3 times and once I lost all progress after completing 3 co-op missions online. I have also gotten stuck in multiplayer matches and seen characters popping in and out of existence in cut scenes. Although I miss Sam Fisher's original voice, I don't mind the new guy. I liked the story and the characters and the Paladin hub world. The game play was top-fucking-notch, I did feel like a super ninja/panther especially when I had my skills down pat after playing co-op online. I had some of my best-ever experiences on Xbox Live with this game during co-op, the people I played with were so patient and helped me to learn how to play better, they are now on my friends list. This was a great combination of the older Splinter Cell games and conviction.

More older quick reviews

The comments field is just for quick comments I think of as I generate the score, not a detailed reviews. Usually they will just highlight criticisms or highlights.

Title	Score (/10)	Date	Platform	Comments
The Raid: Redemption	6	27/02/14	DVD
Carrie	6	27/02/14	DVD
The Wolf of Wall Street	8	4/03/14	Cinema	Acting was great, direction and cinematography was great, plot was interesting, ending fell flat, the movie was way too long, women felt like objects in the movie (I guess that was kind of the point), this made me feel a little uncomfortable watching it with my wife.
Broken Age: Part 1	8	7/03/14	Steam	Good humour, some great voice acting, some pretty average voice acting, wasn't sure which objects I could interact with, which made one puzzle very frustrating because I hadn't collected a critical object, loved the art style, music, locations, Gus, Curtis, Wolf and Jack Black's character's were stand-outs along with the lead girl and the mother in the cloud/bird town.
Robocop	7	17/03/14	Cinema	Cool sound, definitely a big-screen experience, I didn't mind the story and the points it was trying to make. Marketing is always evil.
Twin Peaks Season 1	9	17/03/14	DVD	Had originally given this 8/10, but after enough time has passed and watching some of season 2, this definitely needs to be a 9. It was a great series of television, it made me totally invested in these characters and the world in which they live. I'd love to meet Agent Cooper in real life.
Crysis 2	8	26/03/14	Xbox 360	Enjoyed the setting and the middle section of the game a lot. I found some of the encounters at the end frustrating because they through too many of the toughest enemies at you. I went from feeling super powerful to going back and hiding constantly. It does feel weird killing other humans when there are aliens around, but the encounters with the humans are the most satisfying. Also after being by yourself for the majority of the game playing alongside AI controller soldiers feels great, but it doesn't last very long. Vehicle sections were extremely limited, which would have been useful to break-up the normal game play. I felt the game dragged a little at the end.
Infamous	9	31/03/14	PS3	There's something about this game, something that makes it great, I'm not really sure what it is, it is hard to put my finger on. There are a lot of areas I feel the game needs to improve or the game just does wrong, such as: sticking to surfaces: this is both a fun aspect of the game and a frustrating aspect of the game, it is fun because it feels great hopping from wire to building to wire and you need Cole to stick to the surfaces for that, but sometimes, especially when you're climbing, it is so frustrating, when he keeps landing or grabbing onto the ledge you don't want him too, also the game doesn't always make it clear which surface Cole can cling to and which he can't. Another aspect of this game that I don't like is the enemies' constantly shooting at you and endlessly respawning, but this gives you a good reason to complete all the side missions in that area.

More quick reviews

I'm still reviewing everything, I'll try to post more often:

Title	Score (/10)	Date	Platform	Comments
Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons	9	12/01/14	Xbox 360	Amazing setting, very sad and touching story, could never get used to the controls. Perfect length for that type of game
Hitman: Blood Money	7	12/01/14	Xbox 360	Game dragged-on too long, it is showing it's age. The trial and error game play is equal parts frustrating and thrilling (when it works).
Chronicles of Riddick	2	12/01/14	DVD	Stupid costumes, crap story.
Frozen	9	18/01/14	Cinema	Funny, great settings, likeable characters, good songs, actual voice actors.
Gears of War: Judgment	8	26/01/14	Xbox 360	Core game play is as strong as ever, I found that declassified missions made the game less fun more often than not.
Her	8	26/01/14	Cinema	Felt very weird in places, I'm sure that was the point. I feel it's a very accurate portrayal of the future. Joanquin Phoenix is fantastic so it Scarlett's voice-over.
Assassin's Creed: Liberation	4	27/02/14	PS Vita	Frustrating Vita Controls, confusing and muddled story, clunky combat, bland world
Uncharted: Golden Abyss	7	27/02/14	PS Vita	Too long, during the middle of the game is where the different type of game play scenarios become quite clear to the user and quite tedious, as they are just cycling them over and over again. The game picks up again at the end, would have been nice if they cut out around 3 hours or so however. Story is ok, voice acting is great, combat is fun enough, climbing is only average however. Did not like all the extra Vita control integration, it took away from the game play, not added to it. The trophies in these games are terrible.
Riddick	7	27/02/14	DVD
You're Next	6	27/02/14	DVD

Quick Reviews

I just wanted to upload some of my thoughts on the games I have been playing and the movies I have been watching. Basically after finishing a game or a movie I think about for a few days before giving it a score out of 10 and writing down some of my random comments or notes about it. It's a pretty simple format, which I like because eventually I can look back over the year and see the database of games I have played and movies I have watched.

I'm currently playing: Gears of War: Judgement and Infinity Blade II

Here's the first batch:

Title	Score (/10)	Date	Platform	Comments
Binary Domain	8	5/01/14	Xbox 360	Upgrade system was nice, bit too convoluted and slowed down the action. Action was great, but sometimes felt like bits and pieces, meaning that the game didn't give the action sequences time to breathe, was too broken up by cut-scenes, especially early-on. Knock-down loops, getting stuck in animations was frustrating and caused a few deaths, which made some of the bosses feel cheap, because no clear pattern on how to escape. Loved the cheap sci-fi/love/bromance story, plus the character stereotypes. After fully upgraded weapons, felt like a total bad-ass and was popping robot heads like nobody's business. Enjoyed the last third the most. Was heavily invested in the teammate trust mechanic; I wanted everyone to like me. Thought the mini-gun was great.
Crysis	8	5/01/14	Xbox 360	Early sections were frustrating when you are trying to learn how the game is meant to be played. Definitely got better towards the end of the game, the second half was where I really got into it. The guns sounded great and the game looked great. Too many bugs on Xbox 360, had to restart two levels, because of scripting bugs. One meant that I couldn't finish the game on the last level. Suit voice got annoying after a while, happy to have two options (male/female), but wish I could turn it off altogether. Wish there was more battles with a large amount of marines by your side, ala Halo.
Killzone 3	6	5/01/14	PS3	Game looks great, environments were great, huge set pieces with lots of combatants on both sides, big scale battles with lots of your fellow soldiers that I like (similar to Halo). Guns sound and feel great, the new Arc Canon, was ok, but a little disappointing. Story was nothing too memorable, very dumb, even worse than Gears of War, Rico is a real dick and the commanding officer (whatever his name was) seemed incompetent. Missions in the jungle were the major standouts, the Call of Duty style stealth mission especially, even the space mission at the end was ok. The major problem I had was the parts where you keep hitting your head against the wall, and you keep dying, the game doesn't provide you with enough feedback or information to let you know how you should tackle that situation better, so you just end up dying 10+ times in a row. This happened on more than 7 occasions and it made me want to quit the game. It felt unfair and broken. It was only luck and a whole lot of hiding in the corner   like a coward that got me through those missions. I feel the main reason for this is that the enemies can seem to see you and kill you at such a long range, it's unfair and you don't know where they are and you're too slow to react.
Anchorman 2	6	5/01/14	Cinema	Some very funny sections, but ultimately too far apart and most jokes fall flat. Great celebrity cameos. Story is crazy, message of the film seems a little at odds with the type of movie it is. When Ron is visiting his girlfriend's parents and when Ron is blind are the best scenes.
The Hobbit: Desolation of Smaug	8	7/01/14	Cinema	Second half was much better than the first half. The movie was so long, but still seemed to rush through scenes, maybe it was trying to fit too much into it. Action scene with the barrels was great, the   scenes with Smaug were fantastic, Benedict Cumberbach does a great job as Smaug. Ending was on a definite cliff-hanger. I hate the look of the CGI orcs and orc commanders, I thought the costumes from the first Lord of the Rings' bad guys work much better. Maybe the film goes over the top with the Elves kicking-ass and sliding on things while shooting arrows. Still love the world these movies are set in, I enjoyed most characters, Martin Freeman is very good and funny as Bilbo.

Diablo 3 Taste Test, Couch Co-op at it's finest.

Beer in the fridge? Pizza on it's way? Four controllers hooked up to the console? Well get three friends over, because it sounds like you're ready for Diablo 3 on console.

There's something great about organising to meet at a friend's house to play a co-op game. Usually you tell people it starts at 6:00pm but for some reason, you never get into the game until 9:00pm. From that point on it becomes a night of pizza, accidental (but really deliberate) team-killing, beer, bragging and OMFG moments. This is, of course, until the morning light washes away all the fun from the room, and you begin to realise that you've been playing the same game for 9 hours straight and you wonder what excuse you're going to tell your partner.

I can easily see Diablo 3 turning into one of these games for one of these nights. I had a chance to play the game early at an event put on by IGN and Blizzard and I had a blast sitting on a couch bashing my way through the demons from hell with 3 other guys, and the free beer and pizza was flowing.

The game translates perfectly to console, and I was able to pick-up the controls in no time at all. All the character's abilities are mapped to one of the buttons, so switching between abilities is the press of a button. I like the way the game also had hot keys for items you've just picked-up, it clearly indicated which item was better so you could quickly swap it out and drop the trash if need be and continue dungeon crawling without pausing. Most importantly though, the game now features a dodge-roll move which is mapped to the right stick, so obviously, everyone rolled across the terrain to the next object ala Ocarina of Time.

Couch co-op in Diablo 3 brought back memories of playing Castle Crashes with my friends or even playing Golden Axe at the arcades with my family when I was younger. I could certainly see myself bashing through it again and again with different groups of friends.

To summarise, I have written a Haiku about Diablo 3 and the co-op experience:

The crisp taste of beer
Diablo played on a couch
Fun Demons to kill.


Having not been able to pick this one up when it was initially released for the PC, I'm very psyched to pick this one up on consoles.

Cheers

Tim

Favourite games, what I'm playing

Just a quick note to list some of my favourite games, I couldn't even describe why I like some of these games anymore, it's been so long, and I've just been telling myself that they're my favourite for a long, long time.

Here's a list:
The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time
Half-Life 2
Starcraft
Max Payne

I'd like to go through these games in detail, I just need to set my mind back to that time.

Currently I'm playing:
Sleeping Dogs (Xbox 360)
The Walking Dead - Telltale (Xbox 360) with my wife
Uncharted: Golden Abyss (PS Vita)
Tiny Wings (iOS)
Infinity Blade 2 (iOS)